Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[alohachickens]

Yes, I'm wondering because I've definately seen a lot of "gray" color on the Swedish Flower Hens. I also had it in my Aloha Chickens, early on. I introduced the Blue color from a blue wheaten Ameraucana to see how it would work. (It was surprisingly easy to bring in!) The problem is, I didn't want to end up with "splash" chickens in the mix. (Since blue x blue gets black, blue, and splash chicks.) From what I understand, both Lavender and Dun have the effect of lightening black colors. Lavender turns it a rosy-gray, and Dun turns it a dark brown with one gene, or a light tan (Khaki) with two sets of the Dun gene. (I could be wrong on this.)

Anyway, Porcelain Mille D'Uccle birds are a mottled (mille) color with Lavender making the black spots a soft gray color, but since Lavender doesn't make Splash, there are no Splash Milles. I'm kind of thinking of going that way (someday) on the Aloha project - introducing the Lavender gene from Lavender Orps to avoid Blue x Blue = Splash chicks. But I thought I'd check and see what gene causes the gray feathers in Blommehons?

Here's someone's blog entry from over there that clearly shows gray (or lavender?) on some of the Swedish Flower Hens:

http://hemma.punt.nl/?a=2011-07

And more:

http://www.stallpooh.se/lokshusblogg/web/web/hons.html

I love searching "Blomme Hons" on Google Images and getting all the European sites!

 

[RtSixtySixChix]

Hi Folks
I went on a road trip last Friday to pick up my 5 SFH chicks from JasonQuail. They are 4 weeks old I think. I put them in their new temporary home for the winter (a large plastic bin) and placed them in my warm toasty bathroom. Well, when one of them tried to jump and fly to the towel bar above, I went to Walmart to get a BIGGER bin.

Found her this morning perched on the top of that one... I have it covered for now with a scarf...but I'm thinking playpen next...since they'll be inside til Spring.

Here's a tiny pic. more to come.

 

[anniesmom]

Quote:
I think one or two of her auction photos show the hen. She is gray/blue with red neck feathers and some red feather lacing? Very pretty!!!

 

[Duemig10]

Here is a pic of my three grey hens. Not sure how great the pic is

 

[growinupinfl]

I really need to get pics of mine up here, only one of my 5 have a fair amount of blue. They will be about a year old this Jan. and seem to have lost a lot of the blue when I look at pictures of them as young pullets and cocks. From everything I have seen of the Swedish Flowers they do not breed true. Or no one has bred them to the point of isolating their color genes. I know that GFF had imported from two breeders, one that bred for crest and one that bred for no crest. Other than that I cannot tell you of any specific gene tracing anyone has yet to accomplish. I so can't wait for them to start laying again!

Christal

 

[Knock Kneed Hen]

Seeing this hen makes me think it's the blue gene. What a beauty!! http://www.stallpooh.se/lokshusblogg/web/web/hons.html

I've just been informed that of my 9 eggs from Duemig10, 8 have made it to lock down.

This is pretty exciting stuff!!

 

[Knock Kneed Hen]

I have some info on genetics filed away and found this tidbit of information under Diluters of Black and Gold - •lav -- lavender.-- recessive. Black becomes gray and red feathers become cream.

In the case of my chick the grey is grey and the red is red, not cream. So I would conclude that the color is from blue and not lavender.

 

[jeremy]

My vote is that genetically they are Andalusian Blue, not Lavender.

Lavender tends to look a bit paler and not as rich of a hue as laced Blue.

 

[Phage]

I would say it looks blue.

Besides, these are a land race and unless it mutated independently lav should not be in the gene pool.

 

[Svarthona]

It's most likely regular blue. I've never seen anybody mentioning lavender on Swedish sites and when there's a flock picture you can always see black and splash birds with the "gray" ones.

White as in recessive or dominant white is unlikely to happen. White birds have an extremely hard time when free ranging, so any birds producing white offspring had a hard time to pass on their genes. The general opinion in Sweden is that pure white is not present in the gene pool of the Flowers.

They are not bred true to colors in Sweden, because they are a landrace fowl and those are not bred for true breeding colors in the sense of exhibition poultry. Just seems like a bad idea to artificially restrict their already restricted gene pool.

Regarding the question of vaccinating/medicating or not - the idea behind not doing it is that by medicating a flock there are more birds surviving, even the weak ones. Those are then able to pass on their genes (lack of resistance to X) and produce more chicks vulnerable that disease, like Mareks for example. And since Mareks exists in almost every flock it will be a disaster when you once stop vaccinating. Vaccinating does not mean they don't have it, it just means that they don't get sick from it. If you get a resistant flock and don't start to vaccinate you'll loose a few chicks here and there, but it won't wipe out all hatched chicks.
The problem here is that a flock can just be resistant to a "known" stain of Mareks, one they were exposed to earlier and could build up a resistance against. If it's a mutation from somewhere else it's pure luck if they are resistant to that one or not. So if one is introducing many new birds all the time, visiting exhibitions and the like and there's not much bio-security in the hen house like clean shoes and no introducing of other birds or eggs, that will likely become a problem sooner or later.
And I have no idea how different the stains of the common bird sicknesses are when comparing the US and Sweden. Maybe the Flowers can deal with your version of them, but maybe not. It's hard to say.
And then there's also some states which require you to vaccinate against certain poultry sicknesses, so it may not even be an option to skip medication entirely.
In the end I think it boils down to it that everybody has to decide what's best for their flock in their individual settings. If you are willed to risk a batch of chicks to see if they are resistant to the bugsandgerms on your farm or not. But when selling eggs or buying eggs it's a good idea to tell how you handle it in your flock, so the buyer knows what they will get. Here in Sweden you always see auctions from "not vaccinated flocks" and if it's not in the ad from the beginning you can be sure that the ones interested in eggs or birds will ask.
HTH